


Treed

by cmshaw



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-01-23
Updated: 1998-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-05 06:59:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cmshaw/pseuds/cmshaw





	Treed

Memorial Day, early afternoon  
F.B.I. Picnic Grounds

Agent Mulder draped his damp towel over his shoulders and sauntered over to his partner, who was placing the first round of hot dogs on the grill. Various field agents, lab techs, secretaries, and the odd F.B.I. brass dotted the lakeside beach. Agent Scully was wearing a white teeshirt with a blue NOW logo, ripped blue jeans, and sneakers; she looked, Mulder thought, entirely too clean-cut to be his friend. The perky ponytail only added insult to injury.

She stopped with the hot dog tongs in her hand as he came into her line of sight, then pointed them at him accusingly even before she finished her pointed once-over. "Mulder," she said in her best tell-me-it-ain't- so voice, "you are not walking around in front of three-quarters of the F.B.I. in that red speedo bathing suit."

"I'm not?" he asked, wide-eyed.

"No. You're not."

"Well," Mulder said dubiously, "I could take it off." He hooked a thumb into the waistband. She glared. He waggled his eyebrows. She stared him down as she reached around, picked up another hot dog, and swung it in front of her toward the grill. A simple squeeze on the tongs broke the hot dog in half, and both pieces fell onto the pine needles underfoot.

Scully kept her eyes on Mulder's. "Oops," she said sweetly.

Several of the women standing around them snickered. Mulder swallowed. "Could you, uh, put a hamburger on for me? I'm going to go find my clothes, I'll be right back, I, uh..." He trailed off as he backed slowly away and fled.

"Sure, partner," Scully called to his back.

* * *

Mulder led the way toward an immense gray birch, clad now in khaki shorts and an old teeshirt that said, in big block letters, 'Nobody Knows I'm An Alien.' He put his beer on the ground and handed his paper plate to Scully. She took it, cocking her head to the side inquiringly.

Her partner grinned, reached up, and clambered into the lowest branches of the tree. He settled himself and leaned down for the plate that Scully passed up to him. She handed him both beers and her dinner as well. "Need a hand up, Scully?" he asked with a grin.

"Hah!" she replied, backing up a step. A running leap and a foot planted on the side of the treetrunk got both hands around a branch that would have been only a foot above Mulder's head, but once she had her grip she walked herself up the trunk easily and hooked a knee over another branch. From there Scully swung herself up gracefully and choose a comfortable seat.

Mulder passed her her food and beer, then held out his own bottle. "Cheers."

"Cheers." She clinked her bottle against his, took a swig, and braced the beer between her knees to pay serious attention to her hamburger and chips. For a while they sat companionably in the tree, swinging their feet and watching their co-workers hobnob in small groups (friends) or stiff circles (sycophants). If you watched the eddies of movement with your eyes half-focused, Mulder noticed, you could easily pick out the field agents: they were the ones whose random motions across the beach were always doubled. He didn't need to turn his head to feel the presence of the other half of his pair behind him, perched on a tree limb with ketchup dripping on her jeans.

Mulder finished his burger first, leaning over to drop his plate carefully onto the roots below and following it with his empty beer bottle, which bounced and spoiled the precision. Scully rolled her eyes, dropped her plate on top of Mulder's, and swallowed the last of her beer. Cradling her watermelon slice in one hand, she tossed her bottle down. It bounced and rolled to a halt next to Mulder's. He stuck his tongue out at her. Scully retaliated with a watermelon seed dead between the eyes.

"I've been hit!" Mulder cried, and swooned backward, hooking his feet and swaying upside-down by his knees. "Gunned down by my own partner!" Unfortunately, Scully's next three shots went wide, and Mulder pulled himself upright, retrieved his own watermelon from the branch where he'd wedged it, and began his barrage. He proved to be a much better watermelon-seed shot than Scully, although laughter spoiled his aim after she pointed out that he appeared to be a better shot with plant life than with a gun.

Eventually the watermelon rinds joined the paper plates below the tree. Mulder was trying to talk Scully into going for a swim in the lake ("Come on, Scully, what if there are prehistoric catfish down there?" "Mulder, this is a picnic, not an expedition to Loch Ness." "Have you ever been to Loch Ness? The water there's a bit cold for swimming.") when someone walked under their tree and looked up at them. Although they'd both spent the requisite time circling the party earlier, people had tended to avoid the X-files agents, especially in a social situation where they'd have been seen publically speaking to the ghostbusters. Assistant Director Skinner, however, had been speaking seriously to other high-ranking officials and surrounded by a crowd of 'groupies,' the polite term Mulder had used to refer to the *highly* polite agents who kept offering to fetch drinks for the brass. Now he was calling up to them, "Agent Scully, Agent Mulder."

"Sir," they chorused.

"Enjoying the picnic?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," replied Scully. Mulder kicked one bare foot in small circles.

Skinner stood under the tree in his suit -- no civvies for the boss -- perhaps wondering what else to say. They were interrupted by a flash and a quiet click. Hand going to the gun on his hip, the AD spun around. The two agents above him pulled their feet up and half-rose. With a smug smile, Skinner's assistant stepped forward, a camera dangling from its strap on her wrist as she raised her hands in surrender.

"You treed them, sir," Kim said. She kept her face expressionless, but a giggle was trying to escape. "I thought you might like photographic proof of the event."

It was close. Assistant Director Walter Skinner of the Federal Bureau of Investigation very nearly cracked a big, sunny, delighted grin, but in the end he merely snorted and turned away. He did smirk, just a little, as he moved out of sight of the agents perched in the tree. Kim winked at Mulder and Scully, waved, and headed off.

The two treed agents looked at each other. Scully's lips twitched. Mulder started to smile, stopped himself, and then very slowly doubled over in silent laughter. Scully gasped once and managed to hook her arm securely around a nearby branch before bursting into laughter herself. They kept themselves amused with a 'monkey face' competition while perched over the heads of three-fourths of the F.B.I., most of whom studiously ignored them.

* * *

"Mulder," Scully said patiently, "it's an ordinary snail shell. There are thousands of them in every lake on the east coast." She shook her head vigorously, spraying her partner with water, and combed her wet hair back from her face with her fingers.

Mulder sighed and flicked the shell back into the lake. "You never know," he said.

"One of us never knows," Scully muttered, and stretched her towel on the sand next to the duffel bag containing her clothes.

"Hmm?" said Mulder absently. He flopped down on his own towel, next to hers.

"Nothing." His partner squinted at the sun for a second and apparently decided that it was too late in the day to worry about sunburn, even for a redhead, because she stretched herself out on the towel-covered sand without covering her bathing suit. She glanced at the red speedo, which had reemerged for the swim, and gave it up as a lost cause. Folding her arms behind her head, she said, "You know, I don't think I've been on a picnic like this since my Quantico graduation party. I'd forgotten that the F.B.I. could relax."

Mulder said softly, "I'll bet you had more friends at that party, didn't you?" Scully kicked sand in his general direction. "No--" he laughed, but it was somewhat forced. "I mean, the X files aren't exactly making you popular, are they?"

"Mulder." Scully propped herself up on her elbows. "I've never seen you worry about what people thought of your crazy theories before." She frowned at him.

"No, of course not. I'm Spooky Mulder, I'm not supposed to have friends within my species. *You're* the one who worries about what people think of my crazy theories. Which become, by extension, your crazy theories."

"Mulder," Scully said again, and her frown deepened. "What on earth makes you think I care about my 'reputation' like that? I've put as much work into the X files as you have, and don't give me any of that bull about how I'm only here on assignment or you'll be eating this lovely sand we're relaxing on right now." Her voice sharpened perceptibly at each word until she was practically spitting the final phrase at him.

"Whoa." Mulder held up his hands. "Whoa, sorry. I'm sorry, Scully. I didn't mean it like that."

"Yes, you did."

"I-- okay, yes, I did. And I shouldn't have. And I apologize." He flipped over and stared with great interest at the sand on the edge of his towel. "It's just that--"

"That sometimes you have trouble trusting me," Scully said evenly.

"Scully, I trust you with my life."

"But you don't trust me not to laugh at you behind your back."

Mulder winced. That had been entirely too accurate for comfort, especially given the faintly disappointed tone in which it had been delivered.

"Hey. Mulder." He wouldn't look at her. "Mulder, if you don't already know that I've never once referred to you as 'Spooky' then you obviously don't deserve that nickname anyway."

He had to laugh at that.

"And anyway, I don't know why you keep assuming that I had a bubbling social life before I met you. I'd rather be infamous for chasing little green men than for not chasing any men at all, if you must know."

Now it was Mulder's turn to frown at his partner. She sighed and got comfortable on her towel again. "Oh, come on, didn't anyone ever call me 'Ice Queen' to your face?"

Mulder laughed more easily this time. "Don't you think you'd've heard about it from Skinner if I'd come to blows with another agent?" He heard Scully chuckling at that image and smiled in relief. He added, curious, "Besides, I thought Bureau gossip had us chasing each other around motel rooms every time we had an out of state case?"

"I think they've finally given up on us." She grimaced. "Unlike my mother, who keeps trying to talk me into calling you 'Fox' when we're off duty. Don't worry," she said quickly, as Mulder made a disgusted sound. "I won't."

"Doesn't matter," said Mulder, picking his head up to grin wickedly at his partner. "'Mulder' can sound pretty sexy if you scream it passionately enough."

"Next time I bump into Phoebe Green or Alex Krycek I'll be sure to ask about that," Scully shot back. "I wouldn't want to make an inaccurate report to my mother on the subject, now would I."

"Ouch!" Mulder pouted. "Be nice."

"I am being nice, G-man. The proper response would have been to pick you up and toss you back into the lake with Nessie." Mulder gave his petite partner a dubious look. She returned it. Suddenly not doubting at all her ability to carry through on her threats, he rolled over onto his back and grinned happily at the sky.

"Hey, pardner, want another beer?" he asked.

"Only if you put some clothes on before going to fetch it."

"Spoilsport," Mulder grumbled, not looking particularly put out. He made a show of shimmying into his shorts before heading off for the food tents. Scully just rolled her eyes.

* * *

Although the man behind the podium thought, if the tone of his oration was any indication, that he was a spellbinding speaker, neither Mulder nor Scully had been listening for the last quarter hour. They, along with most of the F.B.I. personnel, had moved from the lakeshore to the nearby hillside where a number of important people who ought to have known better had set up a small stage and proceeded to lecture on the virtues of patriotism from it. The X-files agents, for once in agreement with the majority of their F.B.I. coworkers, had laid in an evening-lecture's worth of free beer (courtesy of the U.S. government's picnic fund) and settled on the grass to gossip in quiet voices.

Scully now wore a white cotton sweater over her teeshirt and jeans; Mulder had produced a zippered sweatshirt of the sort that hadn't been hip for at least a decade, and then not bothered to zip it up. Still, it was Agent Scully who shivered in the light breeze once the sun was lost in the tangle of treetops behind the hill. Mulder scooted closer and put an arm around her shoulders.

"Careful, Mulder," she said. "If Mrs. Janeson from Vehicle Requisitions sees us, we're going to be bumped back down to the '88 Tauruses again." She smiled as she said it, though, and leaned gratefully into the offered warmth. "I've been spoiled by those new Crown Vics you've been getting us recently."

"Scully!" Mulder pretended to be shocked. "You don't really think that the esteemable Mrs. Janeson has been actually violating Bureau requisitioning procedures, or that I would even think of soliciting such a thing!" He laid his hand dramatically across his heart and wasted a wounded-to-the-core pout on the back of Scully's head.

"Agent Mulder, known throughout the F.B.I. for his adherence to the rulebook and his sexual repression, flirting with a secretary for the sake of a good car?" Scully smiled. "I'd be disappointed if you didn't. I'd think maybe they'd cloned you at last."

"Such loyalty," Mulder grumbled. "See if *you* get any chocolates on Valentine's Day next year."

"I didn't get any chocolates this year, Mulder."

"Oh, that's right." Mulder paused. "You refused flat-out to go to Boise to check out those reports of marauding snowmen that I found, so I gave your box of candy to Skinner instead." He paused again. "Thank goodness I'd decided to go the conservative route with chocolates instead of lacy lingerie for Valentine's this year. I mean, think of his face."

He could feel his partner shaking with the attempt not to ask the question, but pieces of it sputtered out anyway. "Mulder? Mulder, *lacy lingerie*? You...?"

"Yeah, I was thinking of getting us matching garter belts, but black lace doesn't look good on me and I was worried that red might clash with your hair. Those were the only Valentine's specials they had."

"Ah," said Scully, and managed to say nothing more for almost two minutes. The speaker on the stage finally stepped down. A few people noticed and several clapped. Someone else began another pep talk, apparently about inspirational budget cuts. Scully matched Mulder's matter-of-fact attitude and pointed out, finally, "Skinner wouldn't be able to fit into lingerie sized for me anyway."

"I think he sent the chocolates down to the tox lab. The man has no sense of adventure sometimes, Scully."

"You can't really blame him, you know; you were the one who brought ants to the Christmas party."

"Winter Holiday party," he corrected absently, "and those were the finest gourmet chocolate-covered ants. I don't understand why no one else was eating them. Hey," he added, looking up, "there goes Mrs. Barbara Janeson herself. With Mr. Janeson, I assume. God, no wonder I've been getting the new cars."

Scully elbowed him sharply and tilted her head back to look him in the face. "I liked those Crown Vics, Mulder," she said, eyes dangerously narrow.

In honor of this rare almost-pout from Agent Scully, Mulder answered her seriously. "It's okay. Barb understands about partners."

Scully considered this, smiling slightly. With a nod, she toasted him with her beer bottle. "To partners, partner." She took a swig. "Even if they drive you to drink, you never have to drink alone," but she winked as she said it, then leaned her head back on his shoulder.

"To partners," he answered, waving his own long-empty bottle -- he'd been trying to play 'The Star-Spangled Banner' by blowing across the top of it until she'd shushed him. "May they get through every day with only minor catfights."

"Hear, hear." They clinked bottles.

"Mmm, Scully," Mulder whispered in her ear. He pointed upward. "That's not an airplane. Think it's a UFO...?"

* * *

One week later  
J. Edgar Hoover building

The photograph, enlarged and framed, hung in pride of place in the X-files office. Scully had protested only half-heartedly, and Mulder caught her grinning at the picture several times over the next few days. It really was a perfect image: Skinner, in profile, appeared on the verge of barking at the two innocent faces peering down at him from the birch tree. And although he'd never admit it, a smaller copy of the photograph went home in Skinner's briefcase and took up residence on the desk in his apartment, where it also got grinned at on a regular basis.


End file.
